Lakeview High school English teacher Kari Milliron travelled this past summer for the fourth time to a Russian orphanage in a city from which one of her very close friends was adopted.

Milliron says that her friend’s parents were really impacted by the experience of going to Russia to adopt their own child and fill out the paperwork, and felt strongly that they wished they could help all the children living in the orphanage.

Because of this urge to assist the rest of the children, her friend’s father found a similar organization in the same city that was doing the work he wanted to be doing, and partnered with them. It is a nonprofit organization called Change30 that he now leads. Every year, sometimes twice a year, he takes a group to the same city to work with different orphanages around the area.

Milliron said the group participates in a variety of activities with the children.

She said, “The idea is that we get to go to the orphanage and just build relationships. We get to play, have fun, do different activities, crafts, and games.”

The goal of all of this is that when the kids age out of the orphanage system and very abruptly have to live on their own, they have built relationships with people in an organization that can help them with the next steps in their life.

Change30 helps these newly young adults with things such as finding an apartment, finding a job, continuing school and how to get enrolled, building life skills, counseling, and so much more.

This program is so important to Milliron because, “The kids don’t ask for help, they won’t get the help if they don’t trust you. So we go to help build that relationship, make that connection, just keep it alive, so that down the road when it’s time, they actually choose to get help from Change30.”

It is a really cool program that Milliron seems to highly enjoy being part of. She hasn’t yet decided when she will be going back for sure, but she takes pride in being able to help young people all around the world.